


when the west wind moves

by the_parallax_of_rain



Category: Better Call Saul (TV)
Genre: Colors, F/M, Nebraska, Non-Chronological, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-20
Updated: 2020-12-20
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:47:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28194942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_parallax_of_rain/pseuds/the_parallax_of_rain
Summary: The office she had picked out. The day she had stood outside those glass doors, an unwavering grin upon her face, as they painted a huge sign sayingWexler-McGill: The Lawyers You Can Trust.There had been a blue streak of paint on her chin. Why does he remember that so clearly, more than anything else?
Relationships: Jimmy McGill | Saul Goodman/Kim Wexler
Comments: 14
Kudos: 29





	when the west wind moves

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cherrystarved](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cherrystarved/gifts).



> A gift for a friend!! 💕💕 Thanks for being awesome and amazing! ❤️

He has to look twice to make sure she’s really there, walking from the airport terminal towards his car, weaving through the crowd as effortlessly as she had once moved through crowded courtrooms. The edge of August has just crept by, and summer wraps itself up with a quiet sigh, and here he is, parked outside Eppley Airfield with a cup of flat soda and the darkest pair of sunglasses he owns, waiting for her arrival.

Once she’s close enough, he can see more clearly the trench coat she’s wearing. It’s the only splash of color in the monotone crowd - a light airy blue, fabric folded from the summer skies, the color of mirages. The sunlight falls in a silver slash across her shoulder, and with the faintest smile, she leans down and gestures for him to roll down the window. 

“Hey,” he says, speaking through the dry knot in his throat, once the tinted glass no longer separates them. 

“Hey yourself,” Kim replies. She pulls open the car door to swing her luggage into the backseat. “It’s been a while.” 

“Yeah. I’m - I’m glad to see you.” 

She folds herself into the seat, lifting the bottom of her coat so it doesn’t snag on the car door. When she’s settled in, she turns toward him.

“So...” The corner of her lips quirk upwards. “Gene, huh? Like Gene Wilder?” 

The ghost of a joke leaps to his tongue, but he swallows it back down. He cracks a weak smile instead. “I guess.” And then he changes the subject. It would do him no good to dwell on Gene for too long. “So, how long will you be in town?” 

“Oh, just the night. I have to be at Lincoln tomorrow by 11 and I’m planning to stop by Red Cloud before then.” 

His mouth feels dry. “Just the night. Okay.” 

It’s a one hour drive back to his condo, and the whole time he can’t quite stop himself from sneaking glances at her. She has her hands folded neatly in her lap, head turned to gaze out the window as the shaved lawn in front of the airport gives way to fields of taller grass, golden and dry as wheat. 

* * *

She picks up at the second ring. “Hey.” 

“Kim.” He swallows. “How are you? Where are you calling from this year?” 

“Oh, right now I’m in Seattle. Moving into my new office.” 

They had parted ways on several conditions. Wexler-McGill would officially become Saul Goodman & Associates. He was to stay behind in Albuquerque to continue practicing in their strip mall office, taking on as much pro bono work as possible. Meanwhile, she would leave town - get as far away as possible until after the heat died down. _I’ll find something in the meantime,_ she had promised. 

A phone call every year on his birthday. A rendezvous every year on hers, if they were both free.

He hasn’t seen her since she left.

“Oh. Seattle. Yeah, that’s good,” he forces out. _You idiot, how insincere can you sound?_ Words from another era. It had only been a few years. Five, maybe six? How was it possible for things to have changed so much in just six years? 

He bites down hard to stop his mind from spiraling. He’s always lost nowadays, lost like a leaf in the wind. His hand itches toward the top drawer of his desk. Maybe he needs another Xanax.

No.

Yes. He could take one after the call. 

He clears his throat. “So you took the job then?” 

“Yeah. Counseling for at-risk youth.” He imagines her shrugging. “It’s good work and I’m still making a difference.” 

“I’m glad to hear that.”

“And how about you? How’s it going with the chemist?” she asks crisply, always direct. 

“Oh, you know, the usual. I give him quality legal advice, he doesn’t listen, then he comes crawling back to me for help - it’s funny, really.” 

“And the other clients?” 

Every time they’ve called, she’s asked the same question. _And how’s the pro bono work going?_

Her law degree currently sits at the bottom of his drawer in its rusting frame. He can’t bring himself to look. He knows she misses it. _And it’s your fault._

“I’m doing what I can for them, Kim. The office is packed every day.” The office she had picked out. The day she had stood outside those glass doors, an unwavering grin upon her face, as they painted a huge sign saying _Wexler-McGill: The Lawyers You Can Trust._ There had been a blue streak of paint on her chin. Why does he remember that so clearly, more than anything else?

“Good, that’s good. You’re doing really well for yourself over there, from what I’ve heard. _Better call Saul?_ ”

A humorless laugh. “Yeah. Came up with it myself.” 

They breathe together for a few long moments, before he says the thing that clings to his throat like a drowned bird. “Kim, look, if I could’ve fixed things...” 

“Jimmy, it’s fine. It’s not even your fault. I stand by the choices I made,” she replies, and he closes his eyes, desperately wishing he could see her now, leaning against the side of her car perhaps, head hanging low, sunglasses perched over her nose. He wonders if her hair still comes out of her ponytail, falling in soft curls around her ears. He wonders if she still wears that dark blue houndstooth blouse. He wonders if she’s quit smoking like he has - and god, he misses smoking. 

He wonders. 

“Kim, I just need to say - ”

“I said it’s fine, Jimmy.” A sharp crackle as she takes in a breath. A chasm ripping open between them. “Or do you just go by Saul now?” 

Bitter dread creeps over his tongue. She’s angry, she’s resentful, and he thinks she might be disappearing like the thin orange glow of sunsets in September, and he’s going to have to _leave_ her like this -

Francesca knocks on the door. “You have clients waiting.” 

“Yeah, just give me a sec!” he yells back. 

Over the line, he hears Kim laugh, and it’s that more than anything else that almost brings tears to his eyes. He can deal with the silence, he can deal with the wait. But not reminders of what she used to be like. “Go be with your clients now, Mr. Goodman. I’ll talk to you later, okay?” 

“Okay,” he mouths quietly, and he hears the call drop. And like a glow stick snapping, he instantly switches on. He slips the phone back into his desk drawer, drags his lips into a crude smile, and taps on the intercom. “Never mind. Send ‘em in, Francesca.” 

* * *

She proposes dinner and a movie, and he thinks about telling her. When she sets out their takeout order on the table, he imagines what she would think of him if he tells her how every day he wears his light blue Cinnabon polo to work, slipping tinted glasses over the bridge of his nose. How he tells his coworkers he has a mild case of myopia. He almost wishes he actually does, so the world would look less sharp around the edges. How he dulls the pain with alcohol to compensate. 

There’s a bar on the corner of 120th and Center, permanently filled with laughing patrons and the monotone voices of sports announcers crackling from the TVs. He’d been there just once, dragged along after his coworkers decided he needed some semblance of a social life, and he remembered glancing up at the lonely moon delicately stenciled in the dark sky, blurred slightly by the neon lights over the window, as his half-eaten burger grew cold in front of him. It would be simple, he thinks, to return there now, to slip back into that busy crowd, to carefully case the room and find an easy mark. It would be simple to bring her along, to turn towards her, drink in hand, and ask how she wants to play it.

Except she gives him a quick smile just then, and drapes her trench coat over the back of the dining chair, and he notices it looks almost lavender in the evening light. And then she settles down on the couch with a plateful of pad Thai and mango sticky rice, and motions for him to sit next to her, and he thinks that this would be enough. Just being here with her, watching the next black-and-white movie to come up, would be enough.

Every night since arriving in Omaha, he has lain alone in bed, watching ghostly shadows from outside move across the walls like water. Some of them take the shape of people he once knew, people who entered into his life and then left just as quickly.

Tonight is no different. When he turns off the lights and settles into the bed, he allows himself to become consumed by those thoughts, by the past, feeling cold despite the thick blankets cocooned around him.

Until he feels her turn towards him. Until he feels the mattress dip slightly to accommodate the slight warmth of her hand on his shoulder.

* * *

“Jimmy, I’m still tired from staying up last night, so I really don’t think I’m in the mood for much tonight.” 

He turns around with a lumpy package covered in red wrapping paper, and her eyebrows jump several notches higher. “Happy birthday Kim!” He holds the gift out to her. “C’mon. Take it.” 

With wide eyes, she accepts the gift from him. “Oh Jimmy. This - you didn’t have to do this,” she says softly. 

“Hey, you know what, let me get you started.” He reaches over to begin ripping off the paper. His thumb grazes the side of her wrist; he lets it linger for a moment. “I _wanted_ to do it. I mean, I couldn’t help noticing that you don’t have many, uh...casual clothes? And I know you mentioned that you were from Nebraska so...” All those hours spent deducing her hometown with Ernie and struggling to hide their search from her like smoke in his lungs, and he hopes they were correct.

He stops for a moment to take in the sight. Kim, standing there with the first thing he’s bought for her using his own money. The warm light from the kitchen lamp forming watery arcs across her shoulder. The torn wrapping paper hanging off to the side like half-shredded apple peels. 

And then she laughs, a sound that blossoms light and silver. “Jimmy, I’m not from Kansas City.” 

_Well then,_ Jimmy thinks. 

“Jesus, I didn’t mess up the state, did I?” he asks, and then barrels onwards. “Or, you know what? We can just say I got it for you because the blue matches your eyes.” 

She shakes her head, face still lit by laughter. She sets the torn package down on the couch, and pulls out the baseball T-shirt from within, shaking it out so that the curling blue and white logo unfurls in front of them. “You weren’t far off though. I am a pretty big fan of the Royals.” 

_Bingo._

“How do I look?” And then she’s pulling the shirt over her head, smoothing it down over her white blouse. And she stands with both arms outstretched, blue sleeves flowing down past her elbows, the rest of the shirt billowing around her like hotel curtains, soft and gray. Her hair is starting to come out of her ponytail in loose waves, gently grazing her cheekbones. She gives him a rare gleaming smile.

He knows she’s going to play off any compliments, and he could say something simple like _beautiful_ or _radiant_ or _gorgeous_ and it would all be true, but it would be too easy. 

So he says, “You know, I don’t get why the color blue is associated with being cold.”

“You mean, you _don’t_ look into my eyes and feel a sense of resounding coldness?” 

He slaps a palm to his forehead. “Oh, of course, what was I thinking? What’s life without the fierce glare of Kim Wexler?” 

A teasing smile flits across her face. “I’m truly flattered. But what do you really mean, Jimmy?” 

“I mean…” He claps his hands together in a sudden burst of inspiration. “Let’s take stars as an example.” 

“Stars.” 

“Yeah. There’s different colored stars and - I don’t know the specifics, but the spectrum goes from blue to red - okay, you know what, scratch that. What I’m trying to say is, I happen to know that the blue stars are the hottest and the brightest in the night sky.” 

“Jimmy, if this is you trying to flirt - ”

“I am just stating scientific facts, Kim!” 

She leans back against the arm of the couch, peering up at him thoughtfully. He can almost see the thoughts running through her mind, and the jump of her pulse against the side of her neck.

Then she chimes in with, “Well. Speaking of blue - I happen to know that the ancient civilizations didn’t have a word for the color blue. They used a bunch of different words. Like _kyaneos_.” She tugs her sleeve lightly. “That’s what you would call something that’s darker, like royal blue.” And then at his incredulous look, she shrugs. “Don’t look so impressed, Jimmy. My roommate’s a linguistics buff, she literally serves me this trivia for dinner.” 

He scoffs. “And here I was thinking Ernie was the coolest roommate.” Then he claps his hands together. “But hey, we’ve all got funny obsessions, you know? Like for instance, mine is apparently obscure astronomy facts - ”

“Jimmy, I’m pretty sure what you told me about stars is not obscure.”

“ - and old movies, and all the stuff featured in the Jan Cicero art gallery.” He pauses, wondering how far to tip the scales. 

He concludes with _very far_. “And you.” 

Her half-smile breaks into a grin. “Stop it, McGill.” 

He holds up his hands in surrender. “Alright, alright. Hey, it’s true though.” 

She dips her head as if she’s trying to hide the blush across her cheeks. “Let’s just forget this conversation ever happened.”

“Are you sure? Because I’m fairly certain we can take on the entire firm at Trivia Night and come out on top.”

Kim lets out a half-laugh, reaching up to tuck stray strands of hair behind her ear. “I’ll be sure to keep that in mind.” 

It isn’t until later, when he opens the door to leave for his apartment, that he thinks to ask Kim about her actual connection to the baseball team.

“Well, it’s funny.” And then she gestures at the letters emblazoned across her torso. “Turns out they’re actually doing pretty badly now. As in, they majorly suck.”

“Oh yeah?” 

“Yeah. It’s been like...at least a decade since they’ve had a successful season.” She exhales, long and slow. “I think the last time they were consistently good was when I was back in Nebraska. I used to - ” Her smile becomes smaller, flustered. “Well, my dad had always wanted to take me to a game but we never got around to it. I think he eventually lost interest when they started on their losing streak.” 

She leans back a little, biting at her bottom lip. After a tenuous silence, she murmurs, “But rooting for the losing team is never a losing cause, you know?”

And like a spark igniting, he leaps into action. “We’ll go, Kim. We’ll go to a game together.” 

She glances up, surprised. “Go to a Royals game? Are you serious?” 

“Yeah, why not? Fulfill your childhood dream?” He shrugs. “How could you say no to that?”

She pushes off the edge of the doorframe and leans toward him, and he tips forward too, bringing a hand up to cup her jawline and the other to rest upon the small of her back. Their lips meet, and she’s smiling against his mouth. She breathes a quiet _thank you._

He asks himself, _what else don’t I know about you? What else is there to fall for?_

She pulls back, her eyes wind-bright, endlessly blue. 

* * *

He sits upright in bed, dizzy, feeling lost amid the disorienting darkness around him. He barely registers the shifting of covers beside him until she’s there, laying her hands onto his shoulders. 

“Hey,” she says softly. “I’m here.” 

“Sorry,” he gasps, squeezing his eyes shut to prevent tears from falling. It’s stupid. It’s so stupid how this keeps happening. “I’m okay, it’s nothing.” 

“Hey, hey. Look at me,” she says, and he turns towards her. The moonlight tumbling in through the window traces a cobalt-blue line around her figure, as if the edge of the atmosphere rests upon her shoulders. And then she moves to turn on the lamp, and her face is luminous, like Nebraskan skies in spring, as if she had always kept that part of her childhood with her. He just hadn’t seen it until now. 

“Bad dream?” she asks, leaning down to look at his face like she has always done when she’s concerned. 

He’s already forgetting the feeling of her lips on his. He clenches the sheets between his fists, as if that can stop the memories from slipping away. If he doesn’t crack now, he will later. It’s just a matter of delaying the inevitable. So he doesn’t look at her. He can’t.

Remnants of his dream swirl into existence. He remembers the blue and gray baseball shirt, the promise he had made to her.

“We never did get to that Royals game we wanted,” he blurts out. 

“No, we didn’t.” Her lips lift gracefully at the corners. “Probably for the best, though. I mean, they’ve definitely improved over the years but still, is it worth spending money on actual tickets?” 

And then, as if it isn’t the worst possible moment to lose all control, like a dam bursting, like his lip splitting, he feels tears sting his eyes. The pain washes over him in torrents, and he watches her become blurred, shapeless through a world suddenly encased in glass. Just like it had been when he watched her through the window at Schweikart & Cokley, her profuse apologies for his antics ringing endlessly in his ears. Just like it had been when he saw her through the front doors of their new office downtown, an eager grin plastered on her face as she comes into work – and god, they had finally gotten an office together, the office he’d always wanted, and they’d finally been partners – and – and –

And he can only let it out in a breathless rush. “I’m so sorry, Kim, for everything, for - for you needing to leave, for you getting disbarred - I tried to take the blame, but they had made up their minds - and now you’re here and Jesus, I’m a nobody now, I’m nothing to be proud of - I mean, I’m working at a _Cinnabon_ for chrissake - ”

 _And I think I still love you but I don’t know if you still love me -_

A business card, torn down the middle, lying on his desk. _Wexler and McGill. Solo practitioners together._

Through a blur of tears, he can only think, _how the mighty have fallen._

He clings to her, continuing to ramble, and she whispers small comforts, wrapping her arms around his shoulders. “Hey, shh, shh. It’s okay,” she murmurs, not realizing that the warmth from her skin feels forbidden, that she shouldn’t even be here, why is she here, why has she come after _all this time_ \- 

Eventually, he runs out of words, and over the throbbing in his head it takes him a while to fully register what she’s saying. 

“I couldn’t care less that you’re no longer a lawyer and I’m no longer a lawyer, or that you work a blue-collar job. I just care about _this_.” And so he lets her rock him gently, back towards safety, and he forces himself to focus on the thin ribbon of moonlight wrapped around her, on the weight of her hands keeping him afloat, reminding him that he exists, that he’s good where he is, that he hasn’t lost everything.

And then, as she rubs slow circles across the nape of his neck, she asks, “So I know this is beside the point, but...do I really have to call you Gene?” 

“That’s who - who I am now,” he chokes out between hiccups. Long gone are Saul’s colorful suits, Jimmy’s patterned ties and socks. He doesn’t even remember what he’s done with them. They’re probably festering away in the dark recesses of some storage facility in Albuquerque.

And then she nudges him gently to turn him around, and brings both hands up to frame his face. Those hands that had once trembled with rage in front of Howard Hamlin, in front of Chuck, in front of injustice, she now uses to cradle him gently. She thumbs at the tears sliding down his cheek and shakes her head slightly with a wistful smile. 

“You’re still Jimmy to me. And you always will be.” 

* * *

He rolls over to face her in the darkness. “Kim?” 

“Hmm?” she murmurs, half-asleep. 

“Are you ever gonna tell me about Red Cloud? Or Nebraska? I mean - I totally get it, if you don’t want to, but - I just want to know. If there’s anything I can do to help. I would - I’d just love to be enlightened.” 

Even in the darkness, he can see the curve of her smile, glimmering. “What brought this up, Jimmy?” 

He shrugs. “Well, I was just thinking, you know? I’d like to be educated. Plus, I mean, it’s not like I’m ever gonna end up there to see for myself. What with…” He breaks off.

She rolls onto one side and props her head up on one hand, the mattress dimpling where her elbow digs into it. “What with…?” 

“I mean, you’re busy with Mesa Verde and I’ve got a whole year’s suspension, so…” He gives a half-hearted chuckle. “I guess what I’m trying to say is, we’re unlikely to be going on vacation soon.”

She studies him for a few long moments, as if just now noticing the hairline fractures that had been slowly appearing over the past few months, then touches his arm gently, feather-light. “Well, what would your first impressions be?” 

He brings a finger to his chin. “Hm, let’s see. Corn. Lots of it. Flat prairies. Cows - cows live on the prairies, right? Or maybe that’s bison.” 

She hums lightly. “Definitely don’t think there were many cows or bison.” 

“Okay, so we got empty prairies then. And oh yeah, abandoned farms too. Blue skies. Ghost towns? Was Red Cloud a ghost town?” 

“Jimmy, that is” – and he feels the air shift as she shakes her head with a huff of laughter – “not at all what Red Cloud is like.” 

“Hey, I’m from the industrial Midwest, remember? Nebraska only exists as caricatures in my mind.” 

“Yeah, okay.” Then after a brief pause, she continues. “You got some parts right. We did have abandoned farms, right outside of town. And blue skies as well. We weren’t a ghost town, but I always thought we might have become one.”

“Why?”

“Oh, I mean – well, for starters, there were a lot of small family businesses that tanked. Businesses that had been there for generations. The facilities were all shutting down – the opera house, the schools, hell, even the banks. And to make everything worse, there were never any actual movie theaters in town.”

“No!”

“Yeah. The closest thing we had were drive-ins, and even those were a couple hours away.”

“Jesus, what an unlivable environment.”

“Trust me, it gets worse,” she jokes. “You don’t even know about the Ding Dong Playschool yet.”

He almost chokes. “The _what?”_

“Please don’t ask.” She gives him a playful jab in the arm, before moving on. 

“But I guess what I remember the most is the weather. The wind was…” She lets out a short huff of air that ends in a laugh. “It was really something.” 

“Tornadoes?” 

She smiles briefly, a sliver of white teeth. “Occasionally. But it was more like…” She shifts slightly to bring her hand to his chest, drawing aimless patterns across his skin. Her head rests against his shoulder. “I would often stand in those fields, the grass so tall it almost came up to my elbows, and try to look for answers.”

“Answers to what?” he asks softly. 

Kim falls silent for a short while, continuing to trace spirals across his sternum. “Well, in summer, whenever the birds would come up north, I would see them scattering in the sky like...almost like iron filings. Always following the wind right out of town.” She sighs, her breath warm against his cheek. “Most everybody in the town was a flight risk. The town was just…hollowing out.”

Then she pauses, as if wondering whether to confess a secret. “For the longest time, I wondered why I stayed for as long as I did.” 

He remembers this conversation on the drive to Red Cloud. At some point during the drive, Kim falls asleep with her head resting against the window, hunched over as if to protect herself. 

That morning, he had dug through his drawers and uncovered her old Royals T-shirt, lying innocuously among his pile of underwear. “Hey, Kim, you left your shirt,” he called.

“What shirt?” she asked, eyes twinkling mischievously, before she swung the door open and maneuvered her suitcase over the threshold, calling over her shoulder, “I’m all packed up anyways, just give it to me next time or something!” 

He held the shirt for a little while longer, blue-gray fabric flowing like water over his palms, fabric that smelled like lavender and lime and cigarette smoke and something else they’d left behind in their past life. He then tucked it back into the drawer, not daring to breathe. _Next time._

The drive to Red Cloud has been shorter than he expected. He almost wishes it would take longer, because she’s going to step out the door and walk away and like a mirage, the sunlight will take her away, and he isn’t sure when _next time_ will be, or how safe _next time_ will be. 

In the distance, against the slowly lightening dawn, the rounded tops of the grain elevators come into view, tarnished silver, brown at the edges where the metal faces rain. The highway converges to a single-lane road, and the grass grows so close to the edge of the concrete that it brushes against the car window. 

As they roll over the rusted railroad tracks bordering town, they creak in protest, having been exposed to empty air for so long.

She shifts in her sleep. Stray strands of her hair cling to the window, as if the world is trying to anchor her here, as if some part of her doesn’t want to leave yet. 

He fiddles with the radio, turning down the volume just as it jumps to another song.

_You’ll remember me when the west wind moves upon the fields of barley…_

* * *

“Thanks for letting me stay the night,” Kim says once he eases the car to a stop against the sidewalk. “And make sure you call that number I gave you. She’s been practicing here for decades now - she actually helped me work through some stuff when I first left Nebraska. Just give it a try, okay?” 

Plastered to the rearview mirror is a Post-it note containing a therapist’s phone number. She had put it there when he wasn’t looking. 

“Okay,” he says. “I’ll try.” _I’ll try for you._

She lingers at the door for a minute, and he fights back the hope that she’s decided to stay. 

And then she steps out into the sun, and glances down at him with an unreadable emotion sparking in her eyes. 

“Come with me, Jimmy.” 

She leads him down the street, past the general store, past the winking streetlights, past the school. They wade through the knee-high grass at the edge of town, wildflowers sparse and red amidst the rustling golden fields. 

“This town’s changed a lot since I left. New businesses, tourist attractions, buildings under construction.” As she says this, she brushes her hand across the top of the grass, and he notices that some of the stalks are still green, still growing. 

“There were a lot of trees back there,” he says. “More than I expected.”

She nods briefly, gaze still directed downward. “Yeah. They’ve done a good job bringing the place back to life for the tourists.”

Then she glances over at him. “But it never felt like home here. Not like Cicero felt like home to you. Albuquerque was the closest thing for me - it was all I got.” She touches his upper arm gently. “And you.” 

And in an instant, he understands. He looks away for a brief second, and when he turns toward her again - slowly, like cinnamon being stirred into coffee - the world tilts back into blinding color. 

He takes one last look at her, to memorize everything before she leaves - trench coat snug around her, belt tied loosely in front. Wisps of golden hair fluttering in the breeze, as she turns her face towards the incoming wind, hopeful and warm and the barest hint of blue. 

And when the wind picks up, she pulls her coat more tightly around herself, and shifts a little closer to him. And Jimmy reaches across the abyss to take her hand. Together, they face the morning, brimming pink and silver over the distant mountains, as fragile as pressed flowers. 

“Someday I’ll have to show you around Cicero,” he says. He imagines catching a flight and leaving the state, watching the plains of Nebraska shrink into neat geometric shapes, crop circles and wheat-colored squares, until the land disappears beneath the clouds entirely. He imagines if that’s what Kim will see once her flight takes off. 

“Yeah,” she says, gliding her thumb over his knuckles, a smile on her lips. She lets her head fall briefly onto his shoulder, a light touch to remind him that she’s still here, she hasn’t yet moved on. “Yeah, I’d like that.” 

**Author's Note:**

> And now begins my agenda to force the Ding Dong Playschool upon everyone...


End file.
